I am slightly more sympathetic to your position than Stephen; in as much as Google Street View makes available what otherwise would have usually required some sort of in-person/drive-by casing, it has the potential to aid criminals. Not just by assessing value of contents, though it could assist in that as well (perhaps it caught you carrying your new TV inside one day), but also as letting people see what kind of windows you have, whether there are security signs on the property, whether you have a dog in the yard at the time, etc. So yes, it is a possible tool, even though as Stephen correctly notes (and I don't read your essay to disagree here) you could get the same info by driving by and snapping a picture. You and the article you link are not the only sources that have suggested a possible criminal use.

But I do agree with Stephen's general suggestion that you try and enhance the case for the harms of Google Street View since we are not yet to dragonfly-sized robots, and the data-mining aspect would require a lot of coding for relevant items (e.g. to effectively market Street View info to landscapers, wouldn't Google or someone else need to note which houses had exotic plants, which had potholes, and sell the tagged house info in bundles? That seems like a lot of work for non-realtime photos?).

Two things I particularly like about your piece, though, are that (1) it is proactive, identifying a potential problem before it is fully realized, and (2) it encourages knowledge in the public since, as you suggest, we don't as a society always realize what is happening to privacy. On both points, I commend your work.

-- BrianS - 3 Dec 2009